Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Thursday Margaret and Helen Blogging
For the first time since September, the blogosphere’s most had-it-up-to-here octogenarians have a new post up. A primal scream I think we can all relate to...
Margaret, what the hell is happening? Nazis are fine people. Russia poked me on Facebook. The Real Housewives of Trump Tower are fighting over who’s the real First Lady. And now the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. Has everyone gone insane?
We had an opportunity to have an honest conversation about racism and once again Trump screwed it up. Those football players are kneeling for a reason and it has nothing to do with the flag. And then we had an opportunity to have an honest conversation about gun violence and once again the Republican Party made it about… turned it into… changed the topic to… wait a minute. They didn’t do anything. They just left it hanging out there. It’s just bat shit crazy if you ask me.
And now we are debating the civil war? Again? I know for damn sure we had that conversation a long time ago and it ended with freeing the slaves and a dead president. Compromise? John Kelly says it was about lack of compromise? General Kelly, with all due respect, what was the acceptable compromise? The South could keep the slaves, but they had to give them weekends off? My God is anyone in the Trump White House not a racist? They’ve got more white sheets than a Motel 6 in Pulaski, Tennessee.
Read the whole thing---including a great slapdown of the ridiculous argument that Democrats don’t stand for anything---here. Thank you, ladies.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 2, 2017
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J Monday. Back Tuesday a fully bonded and insured Jedi Knight. Oops, sorry...I mean Sith Lord. And now that I think of it, probably minus the bonding and insurance because any actuarial worth his salt will tell you the Sith are a terrible risk pool. So I’ll probably just end up coming back Tuesday as Billy with a box of doughnuts.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the special senate election in Alabama: 40
Days ‘til the Savannah Food and Wine Festival in Georgia: 5
Support for impeaching/against impeaching Trump, according to the new PPP poll: 49% / 41%
Estimated number of people who have signed Tom Steyer’s impeachment petition so far: 1.3 million
Estimated number of Americans who saw Russian-backed posts on Facebook during the 2016 election cycle: 126 million
Percent of Republicans in a new Cato Institute survey who view journalists enemies of the American people: 63%
Years the International Space Station has been continuously staffed with astronauts (6 right now) as of today: 17
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment
For me, the most annoying suggestion being made is that Democrats somehow need to claim or reclaim patriotism or to do something to let folks know that we, too, love our country.
I find that hideously offensive.
I have always thought the only way to respond to Republican statements and implications questioning the patriotism of non-Republicans is with a good swift blast of venomous anger. … The contemptible, petty, little would-be Joe McCarthys need to understand what love of country really means---love of the highest and best in America.
---October, 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Sadly, no goals were scored…
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CHEERS to Obamacare: Year 5. Despite all the Republican “repeal and replace” nonsense, not to mention Lord Dampnut’s sabotage of a law he took an oath to “faithfully execute,” HHS and my non-profit health insurance provider wasted no time in letting me know yesterday via phone and email that the 2018 ACA enrollment period for health insurance has begun. As always you can get info and shop around at healthcare.gov for the most bang for your buck. HuffPo has a nice summary of the basics here. Some Mainers are in for a pleasant surprise this year. Thanks to Trump’s incompetent meddling, a whole bunch of us ain’t gotta pay nuthin’:
More than 40,000 Mainers who begin signing up Wednesday for Affordable Care Act insurance may do a double take when selecting a plan on the individual marketplace. Many of those plans will offer free monthly premiums.
Health experts say that’s an unintended consequence of the Trump administration’s decision this year to end payments to insurance companies for cost-sharing reductions, which had helped low-income people buy health insurance. […]
That’s because insurance companies and states devised workarounds to counteract the Trump administration’s moves, which resulted in free premium options for many low-income residents in Maine and across the country.
Not that Trump’ll learn it, but the lesson here is: don’t fuck with the insurance industry on its own turf unless you have your own gold-plated fuck-with-the-insurance-industry-on-its-own-turf insurance policy. Meanwhile don’t forget that having health insurance is still a legal requirement (a mandate, if you will) and there's a significant penalty for not having it: 2.5 percent of your taxable annual income or treatment by Tom Price and his rusty scalpel if you need to go to the emergency room. You’ve been warned.
CHEERS to sprinting out of the starting gate. As the current stewards of the executive branch continue their descent into Lord of the Flies territory, Barack and Michelle Obama are having the time of their lives inaugurating the Obama Foundation (mission: “creating a culture of active citizenship”) this week. Yesterday Michelle discussed various issues with poet Elizabeth Alexander. Here’s a snip, and how great to hear her dulcet tones again:
Said Melania: “Slower! I’m writing this down for my 2020 convention speech!”
CHEERS to bedlam in the bunker. And lo, the clouds parted, and the sun did shine down onto the Oval Office, where the president, rapidly running out of people to blame for his failures, took aim at the Teflon-coated Boy Wonder with the porcelain skin and the most adorable dimples:
According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far.
Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation.
“Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” [Trump campaign aide Sam] Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.”
Even worse than Ivanka? Eek---that’s gonna be awkward around a certain breakfast nook in Kalorama this morning.
CHEERS to the right reaction. Here we go again. Some asshole decided he just wasn’t spending enough time behind bars, so he plowed a rental truck down a bike path in New York City, killing eight and wounding scores more. It was yet another isolated terrorist attack on behalf of some numbskull overlord somewhere for some dumb reason. And New Yorkers acted perfectly by the anti-terrorism playbook: by not being terrorized…
Hours after a suspected terrorist drove a truck into a crowded bike path in lower Manhattan, killing at least eight people and injuring 11 more, New Yorkers---young and old---poured into city streets to celebrate Halloween in a defiant stand against violence and fear.
The annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village went on as planned but with a dramatic increase in security. Among those joining the march were New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
As for the New Yorker in the White House? He spent the night under his bed with a flashlight and a sheetcake.
CHEERS to Ol' Mullethead. Happy 222nd (oh look---a palindrome!) birthday to James K. Polk, the only Speaker of the House to become president and one of 12 to own slaves. Despite protests from some members of Congress, he "exaggerated" his way into a war with Mexico (something about the "smoking gun that could come in the form of an exploding burrito") and annexed Texas as part of Operation Jade Helm 14½. But he definitely walked the walk while he was in office. In the book Rating the Presidents, over 700 historians and political scientists rank Polk 11th-best:
Polk's outstanding success was no accident. He assiduously planned his moves and carried them through to fruition.
Former president Harry Truman summed it up in his own concise way in 1960. When asked what he thought about Polk, he replied, "A great president. He said exactly what he was going to do and he did it." Quite an achievement for a president of any era.
Yeah, but a few months after he left office he was dead at 53 (my current age). Consider that a heads-up, workaholics.
P.S. Today is also the 152nd birthday of Warren Harding---one of the worst presidents in history along with Buchanan, Pierce, Andrew Johnson, George W. Bush (Term 1), George W. Bush (Term 2), and Trump. One thing he shares with fellow Republican Dubya is his abuse of the English language, as when he said: "I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved." And then he'll put food on your family and wings will take dream.
CHEERS to a pleasant evening at the ballpark. I admit it---I was rooting for the blue state team over the red sate team. There’s nothing in the Book of Life that says I gotta be rational about it. But I can’t say I’m bummed, either, by who came out on top last night in Dodger Stadium. The city they’re from is liberal and they needed a morale boost in the wake of the late-summer hurricane-related floods. So congratulations, Houston---THE ASTROS WIN THE SERIES!!! THE ASTROS WIN THE SERIES!!! THE ASTROS WIN THE SERIES!!! Four games to three. Which, coincidentally, is what the margin of victory will be for the Red Sox next year over the Astros. Ain't life freaky sometimes.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 2, 2007
CHEERS to The Man From Plains. That's the title of Jonathan Demme's new documentary, which follows Jimmy Carter around during a late 2006 book tour for Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. And in this one, the giant killer rabbit goes down!
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And just one more…
JEERS to four more years of torture. Thirteen Years Ago today, 121,480,019 voters (give or take) went to the polls:
The dust had not yet settled on the most narrow election victory by an incumbent president in the history of the republic. Bush's edge was 2.5 percent, smaller even than Woodrow Wilson's pathetic 1916 victory margin of 3.2 percent. [It] really chapped my ass when Cheney claimed a "broad nationwide victory" and a "mandate" for Bush's "clear agenda."
---From Al Franken's The Truth (with Jokes)
Looking at the utter train wreck that was Bush's second term, the post-election conservagasm just seems downright silly in retrospect...
"Bush now has a mandate."
---Bill Bennett
"This time, of course, his claim of a popular mandate is incontrovertible."
---TIME magazine
"It is a mandate."
---Tucker Carlson
"He has, I would argue, a mandate now."
---Peggy Noonan
"Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive."
---The Wall Street Journal
"In one sense, we think it an even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide reelection campaigns of Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, and Clinton in 1996."
---William Kristol
For his part, Bush displayed his trademark modesty:
“Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign---political capital---and now I intend to spend it.”
Turns out it was just political fistfuls of mud. From racing back from Texas to sign the "Let's Meddle in Terri Schiavo's Family Business" order, to not racing back during Katrina…from watching his Social Security-gutting scheme fail, to watching bin Laden elude him for another four years…from ignoring Afghanistan to ignoring the recession…from unfunded mandates to unfunded wars...his political capital bought him, and us, exactly one thing: disaster. I'd like my refund now, please.
Oh, and Trump is expected to announce his new Federal Reserve chairperson today. My guess: Palin. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Oh No, Bill in Portland Maine Shit His Pants.
---Wonkette
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